Zavatti, Francesco Comunisti per caso. Regime e consenso in Romania durante e dopo la guerra fredda (review)

Abstract

SEER, 93, 4, OCTOBER 2015 784 World War and in its aftermath. Service’s monograph thus serves as a highly useful introduction to the phenomenon for non-specialist historians and social scientists with limited familiarity with the phenomenon, even as the detailed case studies are essential reading for researchers in this burgeoning field of study. King’s College London James Bjork Zavatti, Francesco. Comunisti per caso. Regime e consenso in Romania durante e dopo la guerra fredda. Passato prossimo, 19. Mimesis, Milan, 2014. 300 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. €22.00 (paperback). One reason behind Romania’s difficult transition to democracy after 1990 was the re-emergence of a powerful nationalism in the early aftermath of the December 1989 events, and the consolidation of a nationalist discourse from then on, which contributed significantly to the way in which post-Communist Romanian politics were to be framed. Francesco Zavatti offers an insight into this development with his perceptive analysis of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s National Communism and its aftermath. Explained succinctly, National Communism in Romania can be sourced to Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej’s quest for autonomy from the Soviet Union in the late 1950s. Whilst remaining faithful to the tenets of Marxism-Leninism, Gheorghiu-Dej’s trajectory was followed with zeal by Ceaușescu who gave it a strong cultural dimension in 1971 through his ‘July theses’. These proposals called for ‘the continuous growth of the Party’s leading role in all domains of political-educational activity’, an emphasis on ‘the great achievements recorded by the Romanian people — builder of socialism’, ‘ a more rigorous control […] to avoid publication of literary works which do not meet the demands of the political-educational activity of our Party, [of] books which promote ideas and conceptions harmful to the interests of socialist construction’. In the repertoire of ‘theatres, operas, ballet and variety theatres’, stress was to be laid ‘on the promotion of national productions having a militant, revolutionary character’. In effect, Ceaușescu was advocating a national cultural revolution which was to generate a mythologization of Romanian history and a personality cult of the Romanian leader. Zavatti examines closely the development of the nationalist discourse under Ceauşescu, acknowledging Katherine Verdery’s seminal National Ideology under Socialism (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1991). His reading of the 1980s weekly television spectacle, Cenaclul Flacăra, devised by the poet Adrian Păunescu, with its emphasis on a form of alternative culture with patriotic overtones, is but one of a number of original, and sensitive, critiques of artistic production of the period. Lest the reader believe that all writers succumbed to the siren- REVIEWS 785 call of National-Communism, the names of, amongst others, Ana Blandiana, Augustin Buzura, Mircea Dinescu and the ‘Paltiniș’ circle would have been worthy of mention by the author. Of particular merit is Zavatti’s discussion of protochronism. Protochronism had its origins in a rejection of foreign forms. Invoking the national interest and the right to define it was a prerogative that Ceauşescu abrogated to himself. Included in this definition was an antipathy to foreign forms, be they imported goods or ideas. This antipathy was forcefully expressed in Ceauşescu’s July theses and gave the green light for a cultural offensive that trumpeted what one Romanian critic called ‘eastern and native’ values while rejecting European ones. Some advocates of protochronism argued that Romanian experience had long anticipated that of the West in the political, cultural and historical domains; others bemoaned Romanians’ innate inferiority complex and sought to restore Romanian culture to its true place of recognition. A casualty of this approach were the Romans. The demotion of the Romans in the formation of the Romanian people was a result of the primacy now accorded to the indigenous Dacians. Under Ceauşescu, Dacian primacy was used as a political tool to give historical legitimacy to the policies of the leadership; the socalled ‘independent centralized Dacian state’ which, it was argued, was created under the Dacian leader Burebista circa 80bc and was the archetype of the ‘independent’ policies pursued by Burebista’s 1980s counterpart. By extension, Nicolae Ceauşescu was presented in official literature, several examples of which were ‘authored’ by Ilie Ceauşescu...